This is very good.
Here’s what I think about activist Pamela Geller’s recent “Draw the Prophet” contest in Garland, Texas, where two wannabe jihadists were killed trying to carry out a terror attack: Geller had every right to organize that contest, and she should not be chided for supposedly abusing that right. When extremists use deadly violence against speech that offends them, tut-tutting “just because you can do it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea” is unseemly and misguided.JihadWatchI also believe that, as I argued recently in The Daily Beast, Geller and her associate Robert Spencer are terrible poster children not only for free speech, but for combating Islamist extremism—because they routinely blur the lines not only between “anti-jihadism” and a war on Islam, but between criticism of Islam and Muslim-bashing. I don’t believe Mohammed cartoons are an attack on Muslims, and I actually thought the contest winner made an excellent point. However, as I documented, Geller and Spencer have spent years stoking anti-Muslim hysteria. I’m not fond of the term “Islamophobia,” which lumps together criticism of a religion and hatred toward its adherents; but “bigotry,” in this case, is not too strong a term
Source: Pamela Geller is a Terrible Poster Child for Free Speech—and Against Islamist Extremism – Reason.com
Go read the rest of that, it is very good.